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Belleville 3, Utica 4

The BSens rounded out their week with a loss to the Comets. Because the BSen broadcast was out of sync with the video I wound up listening to Utica’s play-by-play guy, who was so laconic he reminded me of comedian Steven Wright (probably an obscure reference these days–my memory of him is cemented by his role in Reservoir Dogs). The Tweeted BSens lineup was a bit off as Blunden was a late scratch (Erkamps was inserted as a 7th D, but barely played).

Notable Plays: McCormick misses the net from the slot (first); Harpur hits the post (first); Reinhart misses an empty net on the powerplay (first); Burgdoerfer with a pass to no one (second); Utica goal called off for goaltender interference (second); Randell blocks a shot with his wrist (second).

This was only the 10th game of the season where the BSens actually outshot their opponent (their record when doing so is now 5-5-0). Danny Taylor came back to earth (he wasn’t terrible, but four goals on twenty-four shots isn’t lighting the world on fire).

There were various Kleinendorstian oddities in the game–Tyler Randell (he of the 1 real goal in 40 games) was inserted on the PP for some reason (the last time this happened was December 28th, but his last time as part of the regular rotation was a two-game experiment back in early December). Naturally this did nothing to help the powerplay (the team has scored zero PP goals with Randell on the ice), which also included McCormick (whose limited effectiveness on the powerplay I’ve gone over before–those numbers have only gotten worse, incidentally). Speaking of special teams, I’m not clear on why Harpur has been relegated to the second unit in favour of Murray–Harpur has much better numbers on the powerplay.